At 48, Michael R. Brown Jr. is in the midst of a groove that golfers at that age don’t often find.
The LuLu Country Club representative has always been a good player, but he has turned it up a notch lately. Maybe it started when he won the Joseph H. Patterson Cup, one of the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s major championships, three years ago at Gulph Mills Golf Club.
It was the third GAP major on Brown’s resume, but his first since the 2010 Philadelphia Open.
He was clearly in control of his game last summer when he held off a strong field to win the Pennsylvania Amateur Championship at Lookaway Golf Club, where he had once been a member. Confidence is a funny thing in sports, even moreso in golf. Right now, Brown is playing with confidence.
All of Brown’s talent and experience were on display last week when he took it really low in the opening round of a GAP-administered qualifier for the U.S. Amateur in blistering heat at the Colonial Golf & Tennis Club in Harrisburg, then held on in the second round that included a stoppage of play due to a late-day thunderstorm that turned into an unscheduled overnight stay before he could finish the job.
Deep down, the USGA likes to see the qualifiers for its national championships survive that kind of adversity. You know, builds character and all that.
Brown, a Maple Shade, N.J. resident, did all that and more. And this one’s a little extra special because this U.S. Amateur is being held at Oakmont Country Club, the Henry Fownes gem outside of Pittsburgh that has hosted nine U.S. Opens and is considered one of the sternest tests anywhere in the country.
It is a course that Pennsylvania golfers point to with pride and that the good ones all want to play. The U.S. Amateur will tee off Aug. 9 and Brown will have a starting time.
Brown fired a spectacular 10-under-par 62 in the morning
round June 30th over the 6,868-yard, par-72 Colonial layout, then
came back early the next day, July 1st, to complete an even-par 72
for a 10-under 134 total that left him two shots in front of Connor Sheehan of
Quarryville and Carson Bacha, the 2019 PIAA Class AAA champion as a senior at
Central York and enabled Brown to capture medalist honors.
Sheehan, the three-time reigning Lancaster County Amateur champion, birdied the third playoff hole to grab the only other ticket available to Oakmont.
“I’m super excited to go to Oakmont, which is right up there as one of my favorite courses with all of its history,” Brown, a U.S. Amateur qualifier in 2010 and again in 2015, told the GAP website. “I never thought I’d be back in another U.S. Amateur because qualifying just seems to get harder every year. I’m just really grateful.”
With real-feel temperatures heading toward 100, nobody at Colonial was hotter than Brown in the opening round.
He knocked a wedge to four feet at the 420-yard, par-4 opener and made the putt. After hitting a gap wedge to 20 feet at the 437-yard, par-4 third hole, Brown rolled in the birdie try.
The next two birdies were of the two-putt variety as Brown drove the green at the 285-yard, par-4 fourth hole and reached the 520-yard, par-5 sixth hole in two. A sand wedge from 89 yards away at the 385-yard, par-4 ninth hole finished 10 feet from the hole and Brown got it to 5-under by draining the birdie putt.
Brown was nowhere near done. He proceeded to birdie five of the next six holes.
His gap wedge from 79 yards away at the 382-yard, par-4 10th hole left him with 10 feet for birdie and he made it. He continued to overpower Colonial’s par-5s as he reached the 529-yard 11th hole in two and two-putted for birdie.
A lob wedge from 106 yards away at the 408-yard, par-4 13th hole finished eight feet from the hole and Brown converted another birdie putt. He was hole high just off the green at the 528-yard, par-5 14th hole, flipped it to 10 feet and made the putt.
Brown got it to 10-under when he lifted a gap wedge to eight feet at the 438-yard, par-4 15th hole and made the birdie putt.
He actually made a bogey a the 165-yard, par-3 17th hole, but immediately got the shot back with a gap wedge from 125 yards away to 12 feet at Colonial’s finishing hole and dropped the putt for his 11th birdie of the round.
Brown was 1-over for the afternoon round, but had eight feet for birdie at the 362-yard, par-4 eighth hole, the next-to-last of his round, when the siren went off. The ensuing storm created enough havoc that play was suspended for the day. The planned drive back to South Jersey was replaced with an overnight stay in a Harrisburg hotel.
Brown came back the next morning and buried the eight-footer for birdie to get it back to 10-under and parred the ninth hole. He was in.
The 25-year-old Sheehan, who plays out of Meadia Heights Golf Club, was paired with Bacha, coming off his freshman season at Auburn. Bacha, playing out of Out Door Country Club, pumped in a 25-foot birdie putt at the ninth hole that forced Sheehan to make his testy five-footer for par and force the playoff.
It was a pretty good duel between the two as Sheehan’s par at his final hole completed a 7-under 65, which, combined with an opening-round 71, gave him an 8-under 136 total. Bacha’s birdie putt at the ninth hole completed a 6-under 66, which, combined with an opening-round 70, got him into the playoff with Sheehan.
Playing the 426-yard, par-4 18th hole at Colonial for the fourth time, Sheehan drilled a 9-iron from 140 yards out to four feet and made the birdie putt to end the playoff and punch his ticket to Oakmont. Bacha had to settle for first alternate after falling in the playoff to Sheehan.
Zach Juhasz of Bethlehem was the second alternate as he added a 70 to his opening round of 5-under 67 for a 7-under 137 total that left him a shot behind Sheehan and Bacha. Juhasz plays out of Northampton Country Club.
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